Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Development of Capitalism in Russia

The Process of the Formation of a Home Market for Large-Scale Industry

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

In the work here presented, the author has set himself the aim
      of examining the question of how a home market is being formed
      for Russian capitalism. As we know, he principal exponents ofNarodnikviews (chief among them being Messrs. V. V. andN.–on[4]),
      and
      it will be our task to criticise these views. We have not
      considered it possible to limit ourselves in this criticism to
      examining the mistakes and misconceptions in our opponents’
      views; in answering the question raised it seemed to us that it
      was not enough to adduce facts showing the formation and growth
      of a home market, for the objection might be raised that such
      facts had been selected arbitrarily and that facts showing the
      contrary had been omitted. It seemed to us that it was necessary
      to examine the whole process of the development of capitalism in
      Russia, to endeavour to depict it in its entirety. It goes
      without saying that such an extensive task would be beyond the
      powers of a single person, were a number of limitations not
      introduced. Firstly, as the title itself shows, we treat the
      problem of the development of capitalism in Russia exclusively
      from the standpoint of the home market, leaving aside the
      problem of the foreign market and data on foreign
      trade. Secondly, we limit ourselves purely to the post-Reform
      period. Thirdly, we deal mainly and almost exclusively with data
      concerning the interior, purely Russian, gubernias. Fourthly, we
      limit ourselves exclusively to the economic aspect of the
      process. But even with all the limitationsindicated the topic
      that remains is an extremely broad one. The author does not
      close his eyes at all to the difficulty, and even the danger, of
      dealing with so broad a topic, but it seemed to him that to
      elucidate the problem of the home market for Russian capitalism
      it was absolutely necessary to show the connection between, and
      interdependence of, the various aspects of the process taking
      place in all spheres of the social economy. We therefore limit
      ourselves to an examination of the main features of the process,
      leaving a more specific study of it to further
      investigations.

The plan of our work is as follows: in Chapter I we shall
      examine, as briefly as possible, the basic theoretical
      propositions of abstract political economy on the subject of the
      home market for capitalism. This will serve as a sort of
      introduction to the rest of the work, the factual part of it,
      and will relieve us of the need to make repeated references to
      theory in our further exposition. In the three following
      chapters we shall endeavour to describe the capitalist evolution
      of agriculture in post-Reform Russia, namely, in Chapter II we
      shall examine Zemstvo statistical data on the differentiation of
      the peasantry; in Chapter III data on the transitional state of
      landlord economy, and on the replacement of the corvée
      system of this economy by the capitalist; and in Chapter IV data
      on the forms in which the formation of commercial and capitalist
      agriculture is proceeding. The next three chapters will be
      devoted to the forms and stages of the development of capitalism
      in our industry: in Chapter V we shall examine the first stages
      of capitalism in industry, namely,in small peasant (known
      as handicraft) industry; in Chapter VI data on capitalist
      manufacture and on capitalist domestic industry, and in Chapter
      VII data on the development of large-scale machine industry. In
      the last chapter (VIII), we shall make an attempt to indicate
      the connection between the various aspects of the process that
      have been described and to present a general picture of that
      process.

P.S.[5]To our
      extreme regret we have not
      been able to use for this
      work the excellent analysis of “the development of agriculture in
      capitalist society” made by K. Kautsky in his bookDie
	  Agrarfrage(Stuttgart, Dietz, 1899; I. Abschn.“Die Entwicklung
      der Landwirtschaft in der kapitalistischen
      Gesellschaft”[1]).[2]

This book (which we received when the greater part of the
      present work had already been set up in type) is, after Vol. III
      ofCapital, the most noteworthy contribution to recent
      economic literature.Kautskyinvestigates the “main tendencies” in the capitalist evolution
      of agriculture; his purpose is to examine the diverse phenomena
      in modern agriculture as “particular manifestations of one
      general process”

(Vorrede,[3]VI). It is interesting to note how
      far the main features of this general process in Western Europe
      and in Russia are identical, notwithstanding the tremendous
      peculiarities of the latter, in both the economic and
      non-economic spheres. For example, typical of modern capitalist
      agriculture in general is the progressive division of labour and
      the employment of machinery (Kautsky, IV, b, c), a phenomenon
      also noticeable in post-Reform Russia (see later, Chapter III,
      §§ VII and VIII; Chapter IV, particularly §
      IX). The process of the “proletarisation of the peasantry” (the
      heading of Chapter VIII of Kautsky’s book) is manifested
      everywhere in the spread of wage-labour in every form among the
      small peasants (Kautsky, VIII, b); we see the parallel of this
      in Russia in the formation of a huge class of allotment-holding
      wage-workers (see later, Chapter II). The existence of a small
      peasantry in every capitalist society is due not to the
      technical superiority of small production in agriculture, but to
      the fact that the small peasants reduce the level of their
      requirements below that of the wage-workers and tax their
      energies far more than the latter do (Kautsky, VI, b; “the
      agricultural wage-worker is better off than the small peasant,”
      says Kautsky repeatedly: S. 110, 317, 320); the same thing is
      also to be observed in Russia (see later, Chapter II, § XI,

      C[6]). It
      is natural, therefore, that West-European and Russian
      Marxists should agree in their appraisal of such phenomena as
      “agricultural outside employments,” to use the Russian term, or
      the “agricultural wage-labour of migratory peasants,”as the
      Germans say (Kautsky, S. 192; cf. later, Chapter III, § X);
      or of such a phenomenon as the migration of workers and peasants
      from the villages to the towns and factories (Kautsky, IX,
      especially S. 343; and many other places. Cf. later, Chapter
      VIII, § II); the transplantation of large-scale capitalist
      industry to the rural districts (Kautsky, S. 187. Cf. later,
      VII, § VIII). This is quite apart from the same appraisal
      of thehistoricalsignificance of agricultural
      capitalism (Kautsky, passim, especially S. 289, 292,
      298. Cf. later, Chapter IV, § IX), from the same
      recognition of theprogressivenature of capitalist
      relations in agriculture as compared with pre-capitalist
      relations [Kautsky, S. 382: “The oustingdes Gesindes(of personally dependent farm labourers, servants) andder
      Instleute(“midway between the farm labourer and the tenant
      cultivator”: the peasant who rents land, making payment by
      labour-service) by day labourers who outside of working hours
      are free men, would mark great social progress.” Cf. later,
      Chapter IV, § IX, 4]. Kautsky categorically declares that
      the adoption by the village community of large-scale modern
      agriculture conducted communally “is out of the question”
      (S. 338); that the agronomists in Western Europe who demand the
      consolidation and development of the village community are not
      socialists at all, but people representing the interests of the
      big landowners, who want to tie down the workers by granting
      them patches of land (S. 334); that in all European countries
      those who represent the landowners’ interests want to tie down
      the agricultural workers by allotting them land and are already
      trying to give legislative effect to the appropriate measures
      (S. 162); that all attempts to help the small peasantry by
      introducing handicraft industry (Hausindustrie)—that worst
      form of capitalist exploitation—“should be most resolutely
      combated” (S. 181). We consider it necessary to emphasise the
      complete unanimity of opinion between the West European and the
      Russian Marxists, in view of the latest attempts of the
      spokesmen of Narodism to draw a sharp distinction between the
      two (see the statement made by Mr. V. Vorontov on February 17,
      1899, at the Society for the Promotion of Russian Industry and
      Trade,Novoye Vremya [New Times], No. 8255, February
      19,

1899).[7]

[1]The
      Agrarian Question,Part I. “The Development of Agriculture
      in Capitalist Society.”—Ed.

[2]There is a Russian tranlsation.—Lenin

[3]Preface.—Lenin

[4]V.V - pseudonym of V.P. Voronstov.

N.–on - pseudonym of Nikolai
      Danielson. Both were prominent ideologists of liberal Narodism
      in the 1880s and 90s.—Ed.

[5]In February or at the beginning of March 1899, when in exile,
      Lenin received a copy ofDie Agrarfrage(The Agrarian
      Question) by Kautsky, then still a Marxist. By then, the greaterpart ofThe Development of Capitalism in Russiahad
      been set up in type, and so Lenin decided to make reference to
      Kautsky’s work in hte preface. On March 17 (29), 1899, Lenin
      sent a postscript to the preface. “If only it is not late,” he
      wrote, “I would very much like to have it printed... Maybe, even
      if the preface is already set, it will still be possible to add
      the postscript?” The addition to the preface got into the hands
      of the censor and was changed. In a letter dated April 27 (May
      9), 1899, Lenin wrote of this: “Have heard that my P.S. to the
      preface was late, fell into the hands of the preliminary censor
      and ‘suffered,’ I think.”

[6]In the
      second edition ofThe Development of Capitalism in
      Russiathe numbering of the sections was changed through
      Lenin’s introduction of several additions. The item to which
      Lenin refers the reader is in Chapter II, § XII, C, p. 162 and
      p. 168.

[7]On
      February 17, 1899, in the Society for the Promotion of Russian
      Industry and Trade, a discussion took place on a paper entitled
      “Is It Possible to Reconcile Narodism with Marxism?”
      Representatives of liberal Narodism as well as “Legal Marxists”
      took part in the discussion. V. P. Voronstov (V. V.) said that
      those who represented the “modern trend of Marxism in the West”
      stood closer to Russian Narodism than to the Russian Marxists. A
      brief report of this meeting appeared on February 19 (March 3),
      1899, in the reactionary St. Petersburg paper,Novoye Vremya
      (New Times).